The Sequel Part 15

"My boy," he said calmly, "you are right, and I am also right. That selfishness on the part of the workers is but the fear of having their wages cut and becoming unemployed with the advent of further compet.i.tion. Remove that fear and keep the unemployed from cutting wages and the selfishness will disappear. The Humanist creed recognises all men as sparks of Divinity. There will be no 'scabs,' 'pimps,'

'blacklegs,' or other vile, cruel epithets. The men and women who work will combine with those unemployed. The result will be such a world's combination of labor that all sources of profit-winning will be in the hands of the men who toil. It will indeed be a conquest of the world.

"Already we control the Governments of Germany and Austria. France and England will certainly follow at the next elections. The French workers do not forget that, during the war, their Government successfully organised the whole of the industries; and the English toilers remember how the Asquith Government successfully controlled all the great munition factories and limited the employers' profits to 10 per cent., giving the surplusage to the State. Now I note that the British workers are demanding that just as the State successfully controlled great works during the war and claimed the profits in excess, so it should control all works now and let the profits go also to the Common Good--yes, that's the term. It's almost a divine inspiration. The Common Good is the doctrine of the Humanist! Watch the cause! It will sweep the earth!"

As he shook hands with me, I could feel his nerves twitching.

Nap and I walked back to the great camp almost in silence, and little sleep came to me that night.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The Terms of Peace.

I shall never forget the grand march of the Allies through Berlin, and the sealing of the Treaty of Peace.

There had been much delay regarding what the Terms of Peace should be.

Great Britain was the stumbling block.

Eighty years before, Washington Irving wrote of "John Bull":--

"Though no one fights with more obstinacy to carry a contested point, yet when the battle is over and he comes to reconciliation, he is so much taken up with the mere shaking of hands, that he is apt to let his antagonists pocket all they have been fighting about."

England proved that once again in South Africa, for after fighting five years with the Boers, she actually gave them what they were fighting for--their independence.

With Germany she was inclined to be generous, but the French, Belgian and Russian delegates urged firmness, and the Terms of Peace were finally settled.

It was estimated that the actual expenditure of the Allies was 1,180,000,000, and the loss in shipping 250,000,000, a total loss of 1,430,000,000.

Germany and Austria had to hand over to the Allies the whole of their Navies to be held for the protection of the world's peace, and each nation had to pay an indemnity of 1,000,000,000. The German prisoners had to be kept in Belgium for nine months to repair damage done to Belgian towns. The boundaries of France and Belgium were to be extended to the Rhine. Holland was to be absorbed by a joint protectorate that took in the Schleswig-Holstein Peninsula. Poland was to go back to Russia, Servia and Italy being allotted the sh.o.r.elines of the Adriatic.

The Dardanelles was to be an open, undefended waterway. Bulgaria was to absorb Turkey in Europe, Russia obtaining further concessions in Caucasia.

There were other details of the terms that need not be here mentioned.

But on the 1st day of December, 1915, the Treaty of Berlin confirmed them.

There was little demonstration in Germany. The new political party in power, the Humanists, had already agreed to disarmament; so the first part of the treaty did not trouble. The policy of "universal brotherhood" subdued any qualms that might have arisen regarding loss of territory. Regarding the indemnity: it could be met by imposing a heavy income tax on all incomes over 3000 marks (150). By this means the Humanists would make the capitalists pay for the war.

The Humanist Government readily accepted the demand of the Allies that the German prisoners should not be returned to Germany for nine months.

They were drafted into great work-camps in Belgium, and were put to replacing bridges, reconstructing buildings, and making good all they had devastated.

I remember at the time, how the world jeered at the so-called "Humanist"

Government in Germany, because it so readily agreed to the harsh treatment of the "Sons who fought for the German Empire." But the Berlin officials were wise. For nine months an army of 800,000 men were being fed and kept at the Allies' expense. That mob was thus prevented from returning to an overstocked manufacturing nation. They were being held back to give their country nine months' opportunity to "put its house in order."

CHAPTER XXIV.

What Happened in England.

On leaving Berlin our squadron was part of the force that had to return to England. I had hoped to break the journey at Brussels, to meet Helen Goche, but Fate stepped in. To my disappointment the troop-trains pa.s.sed on to Ostend along a line to the south of Brussels.

On arrival in England, the Flying Corps were not disbanded, but were attached to the permanent forces.

Nap, however, desired to return to the United States, and as we shook hands in "good-bye," I felt I was losing a friend to whom adventurous days had linked me by heart-grips.

"I'm going along through to that country of yours," he said to me as he swung into the train. "From what you tell me, it must be 'some place.'

We'll grip again there, sure." And the train pulled out and tore him out of my life for many days.

The months succeeding the Declaration of Peace were troublesome times for England. Troops were pouring back from the Continent and being dismissed to return to jobs they found had disappeared.

During the war a fine spirit of "cheer up" generally prevailed. People tried to put vim into themselves by tacking the motto over their shops: "Business as Usual." They knew full well that business was nearly dead; but they were like the boy who whistled going through the graveyard in order to keep up his courage.

Apart from the trades making munitions of war, few factories maintained their full output. Recruiting lessened the number of employees, and those who stayed behind fought for shorter hours and higher wages.

Investors generally eased off, as money was too high in value to risk in new concerns in such uncertain times. Even the highly boosted scheme to bring back to England from Germany the Aniline dye industry failed for the want of the necessary capital.

Then a great movement was inaugurated throughout the British Empire.

"Trade only with the Allies." It seemed a fine idea in theory, but when Russia, in desiring to place an order for 1,400,000 worth of railway plant, found English prices inflated by labor demands and placed the order with America, the "Trade-only-with-the-Allies" movement began to wobble.

Then the troops began to pour back into England in thousands.

Manufacturers and investors kept off of any new enterprises as they saw the Asquith Government, always rather radical, lending a sympathetic ear to the workers' demand that the State should control all industries.

Cities and towns now began to fill with unemployed and riots broke out everywhere.

Then the Government took action. All steel and woollen industries were placed under military control with "preference to returned soldiers."

The outcries of the owners were pacified by the promise of 10 per cent.

of all profits on work done, with proportional profits according to the value of the plant and enterprise. But under the military control, as increased wages were given and shorter hours worked in order to absorb all unemployed, profits diminished rapidly.

The General Elections in February, 1916, divided the country into two parties. The Humanist party, headed by Lloyd-George and Blatchford, aiming at Government control of all production, and the Individualist party, in which Winston Churchill was prominent, standing for "private enterprise." Though the latter had behind it the full force of British capitalists, the Humanist party, elected on a general franchise, swept the poll. Thus England became Socialistic. Heavy land and income taxes followed with high wages ruling for the working cla.s.ses. It was a bloodless revolution!

CHAPTER XXV.

Belgium Holds the Gate Again.

It was shortly after the Humanist Government a.s.sembled in London that considerable disbandment in the British military forces took place, my squadron, amongst others, being marked out. I lost no time in crossing to Brussels. I remember when I again met Helen Goche I felt, at first, a strange reserve, fearing that our short friendship in Cologne had no deeper meaning for her; but we both realised that henceforward our paths would be together; so I joined her in her work with the Belgian "Joan of Arc."

I never knew the name of this wonderful woman. We simply called her "Madame"; but her power of organising was remarkable and recalled to my mind the similar success of Wilbrid in Germany.

Madame was the head of an organisation that had a branch in every town in Belgium.

Tall and somewhat thin, without any striking personal beauty, she stood erect before her audience, and, with the sincerity of her purpose, carried all before her.